Residents Upset Over Waiver for Rebuilding

A group of Malibu residents burned out of their homes by the wildfires expressed alarm this week about a building department policy that will require property owners to release the city from liability for geological hazards.

Under the policy, before a building permit is issued, an owner of property in an area with known landslide or earthquake danger would have to sign a waiver agreeing not to hold the city responsible for any damage that subsequently occurs.

Architect Marc Winnikoff, who lost his Las Flores Mesa home in the fire, praised the city’s post-fire responsiveness at last Monday’s City Council meeting, but he said the waiver requirement will cause “extraordinary economic hardship on our neighborhood, making it difficult to obtain insurance and financing as well as greatly reducing our property values.”

Assistant City Atty. Christi Hogin told the council that some residents are reacting to the waivers as if they were “a scarlet letter” that would discourage lenders from making loans.

Winnikoff and Barry Kinyon, president of the Lower Las Flores Mesa Property Owners Assn., acknowledged in a joint statement that some areas of Malibu are more geologically hazardous than others, but maintained that their area has not experienced any substantial geologic failures in the 40 years it has been developed.

Hogin said in an interview Tuesday that 80% to 90% of the 280 homes in Malibu damaged or destroyed by the fires are in geologically hazardous areas, such as the Big Rock and Las Flores slide areas.

Under the city’s building code, inherited from Los Angeles County when Malibu incorporated three years ago, property owners in hazardous areas must demonstrate through a geologic report that the land is sufficiently stable before a new building permit can be issued.

Hogin said an obvious alternative for residents in hazardous areas is to sign a liability waiver, because geologic reports for areas such as Big Rock, where a major landslide occurred in the early 1980s, are not likely to find many building sites sufficiently stable to justify issuance of a building permit.

“The city is trying to get out of the way” of property owners so they can rebuild, Hogin said, “but the city can’t completely ignore reality.”

However, several residents complained to the council that the waiver is unfair because it will require them to do something they did not have to do before.

The council is expected to discuss liability waivers as well as measures to streamline the building application process at its Monday meeting.